Money makes political world go 'round

This week's revelations about politicians being given big money were what you'd call a hoary spectacle no matter how you looked at it -- or spelled it.

First we learned about a politician who sent his chief of staff to get plastic bags filled with money from a regional special interest that was seeking to buy influence -- and apparently succeeding, if we take the politician's own words at face value.

Then we learned about all the other politicians -- they just broke the all-time records for seeking, raising and spending money in U.S. midterm elections. They got their special interest money not by the bagsful but in the somewhat more traditional ways -- checks and electronic transfers. The money comes from political action committees controlled by lobbyists who work for special interests seeking to buy or at least rent influence.

The politician in the first instance was Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. On Sunday The New York Times scooped the world, reporting Karzai has regularly sent his chief of staff (Umar Daudzai) to receive bags of money (euro bills) handed to him by Iran's ambassador to Afghanistan (Feda Hussein Maliki). This report, attributed to anonymous Afghan officials and Western officials, was initially denied by Afghan and Iranian officials. But the expiration date on their denial was only one news cycle. On Monday, Karzai suddenly called a news conference and confirmed the story.

"They do give us bags of money -- yes, yes, it is done," Karzai proclaimed. "We are grateful to the Iranians for this." Afghan and Western officials had told The New York Times Iran was investing this money in Afghan politicians hoping to drive a wedge between Afghanistan and the U.S.-NATO coalition.

On Monday, Karzai's words Monday made clear that Iran reaped a grand return on its investment. Karzai blasted the United States for paying private security companies that, he said, "causes the killing of Afghan children and causes explosions and terrorism in Afghanistan."

Missing in action, of course, was any sense that Karzai is grateful for the fact that he is in position to get Iran's moneybags only because the U.S. spent billions there and mainly because the American people paid their ultimate treasure -- the lives of their loved ones who fought and died in Afghanistan.

Perhaps somewhere back in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was celebrating by posing beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner. But just how much Iran invested in Team Karzai remains unclear. Karzai, whose government has been notoriously corrupt from his inner circle and family on down, said Iran gave up to $1 million, once or twice a year, and all was spent on government expenses. But Afghan and Western officials reportedly put the figure at about $6 million, a gap that remains unexplained.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, Democratic and Republican candidates for the Senate and House have reportedly shattered all midterm election records for amassing and spending money. U.S. politicians will get and spend more than $2 billion on campaigns for the first time, according to The Washington Post. They will spend most of it on television ads.

Much of it comes from special interests from big business to big labor that have invested record amounts. They invest in carefully selected candidates because they expect their special interest will eventually reap huge profits from these investments.

Just as U.S. politicians rarely get their bucks in bags, special interest paybacks rarely come in ways as crass as a vote for a check. They mainly occur in the form of a few words buried in legislation that provide a quiet subsidy, tax break or just a regulatory look-the-other-way.

But the bottom line is: special interests invest in our pols because they know they reap mega-profits when they do. Investments of just thousands of dollars in politicians who desperately need to buy more TV ads, can produce profits worth hundreds of millions and more for a special interest.

We take pride in our land of free speech. Yet every time we turn on our TV in the final days of Campaign 2010, we also discover that money talks.